


One Step at a Time

by Roxie_Mama



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 05:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roxie_Mama/pseuds/Roxie_Mama





	One Step at a Time

“Today is the day! The day I am going to meet Draco’s parents. What was I thinking!?! They are going to hate me. Why did I even agree to this? I love him and want to marry him, but his parents were death eaters! They aren’t going to want their son to be with me. What if they change his mind? What if he realizes that he is so much better than me?” Harry said as he paced around Hermione’s office.

“Stop it right now Harry,” Hermione said sharply. “You can’t keep living in these fantasies of yours. You are going to drive yourself insane!”

“Easy for you to say, Molly and Arthur love you! You never had to worry that they would be upset with you for dating their son. They were over the moon when you started dating George!” Harry whined. “The only person that was upset over it was Ron, and that was only because you didn’t tell him first.”

“Well you and I both need to be going. I am not sitting here at the Ministry listening to you freak out over nothing all evening!” Hermione said as she cleared her desk. 

“I know, I still need to go home and get ready. Thanks for listening Mione.” Harry said as he went out the door.

Harry left Hermione’s office and headed towards the lift, wishing he had an excuse to get out of going to dinner tonight. He was not paying much attention to his surroundings as he was lost in thought. As he reached the lift, someone started poking him. Thinking it was one of his groupies he ignored it while waiting on the lift to open. “I’m not going to stop poking you until you pay attention to me!” Hermione said, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise it was you. I thought one of those fangirls was after me for an autograph, or worse, a date!” Harry said as he shuddered. The last time he had tried to be nice and the girl had tried to kiss him while she groped him. Just then the lift arrived and the two got on.

“I just wanted to ask you how practice was, I never got a chance since you went into freak out mode as soon as you walked in.” Hermione laughingly replied. “George won’t forgive me if I don’t give him any news on Puddlemere United’s newest member!”

“Oh hush you,” Harry said laughingly. “You know he can’t ever stay mad at you! Practice was good, I enjoy working with Oliver again. He is much calmer than when we were at Hogwarts.”

“Good, I am glad you are enjoying it!” As the lift came to a stop and the doors opened she gave him a quick hug. “Now go home and shower. You have a dinner to get to!”

“Ugh, you had to remind me?” Harry said as he approached the floo. “I had almost forgotten for a bit.” He laughed as he threw some floo powder in, before saying “ Grimmauld Place” and disappearing in a swirl of flames.

He reappeared in a swirl of flames in the basement of Grimmauld Place. It was much homier and clean now. Thankfully Kreacher had been able to remove Mrs. Black’s portrait from the hallway and moved it to Regulus’s old room. The house looked nothing like it did when Harry, Hermione, and Ron had stayed there during their search for the Horcruxes. After the war Harry had come back and practically gutted the place. Now it has a light and airy feel, with a much friendlier atmosphere. 

As Harry headed towards the stairs, Kreacher popped in and asked, “Master is there anything Kreacher can do for you?”

“Could you pop up and turn on the shower for me please, I am in a bit of a rush tonight. No need for you to fix dinner either, I am going to be out tonight.” Harry answered kindly. With that Kreacher popped away and Harry heard the water running in the shower. 

As Harry went to jog up the stairs, Kreacher popped back in front of him at just the wrong time. “I am sorry for kicking you in the face Kreacher! It was an accident,” Harry said, horrified at what he had done.

Kreacher got up and said, “Master is not at fault, Kreacher should not have popped where you were walking. Kreacher is fine, it was not hard enough to hurt Kreacher.” With that he toddled off towards the kitchen.

Harry resumed his trek to get ready, still feeling horribly guilty despite Kreacher’s assurances. After his shower, he stressed over what to wear. He was tempted to floo Hermione, Luna or Ginny to ask them, but decided on his dark green dress robes, with a pale leaf green shirt and tie finally. As he finished getting ready, his nerves started to take over again. Before he could freak out, Kreacher popped in to tell him there was a floo call for him.

As he arrived at the floo he could see it was Draco, his first thought was that he was calling to break up with him. His second was that he was canceling dinner. As he nervously approached the floo, Draco saw him and said, “There you are, I was worried you were going to be late!”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, “No, I just finished getting ready. Can I come through now?”

“Of course Love, just give me a minute to move out of the way.” Draco replied.

After Draco withdrew, Harry took a deep breath and made sure he had everything before taking the floo to Malfoy Manor. When he emerged he was pleasantly surprised that the Manor looked nothing like it had the last time he was there. It too had been remodeled to erase the memories of the past. Where it had been rather dark and imposing, now it was quite light and welcoming. This helped ease some of his trepidation about the evening to come. As he turned to look around, his breath caught in his throat as he saw Draco for the first time. He looked amazing in a set of light grey dress robes with a dark grey shirt and silver tie. The ring Harry had given him was on his left ring finger, prominently displayed. “Well let’s get this evening started, Love,” said Draco holding out his hand.

As Harry took his hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed Draco’s fingers before tucking it in the crook of his arm. “Lead the way, I am not familiar with your home.” Harry replied.

With a smile Draco turned them towards the door leading out of the reception room. “I am glad you are here, I was afraid you were going to cancel. Not that I blame you, your memories of this house can’t be good. Not with everything that happened.” Draco stated as they walked.

“Actually it looks so different that I don’t have memories jumping out at me. It is a beautiful home, now that it has been redone.” Harry answered honestly. “If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t even know it was the same house.”

“That would be mothers doing, she wanted every trace of Voldemort and the death eaters eradicated from our home. Needless to say father didn’t argue with her. He was in enough trouble with her for involving our family in all of that to begin with!” Draco said with a slight laugh as he led Harry through another door. “Well here we are, this is the dining room. Mother and father will be down shortly, I am sure. Why don’t we sit down?”

After they sat Harry started to get nervous again and started fidgeting with the edge of the table cloth. Draco noticed and asked, “What is wrong, Love?”

Harry sighed and said, “What if they don’t like me? Or forbid you from marrying me? Or..” 

Draco cut him off, “They will love you, and regardless of that, I love you and I want to marry you. I don’t care what they say, I am not leaving you. Now stop worrying about it and give them a chance to get to know you.” He then leaned over and gave Harry a gentle kiss on the lips. 

Harry calmed down and the two sat in a comfortable silence, holding hands and enjoying being together. Soon after Narcissa and Lucius entered and sat across from them. “Welcome to our home Harry, I am glad that you came. I am looking forward to getting to know you better,” Narcissa greeted Harry with a smile as she sat down. “Draco has been very tight lipped about your relationship.” 

“Thank you for having me, your house is quite different than I expected, honestly.” Harry stated. “My memories are of a much… darker aesthetic. Much like Grimmauld Place was.”

“Yes, it was quite dismal when you were here. I apologize for what part we played in all of that. My choices when I was young were… regrettable to say the least. Shortly after the Dark Lord’s resurrection I realized how wrong we were, but I saw no way out at the time. I did what I had to, to ensure my family’s survival.” Lucius replied. “If I could go back in time, I would have never joined him. It is my greatest shame.”

Narcissa reached over to grab his hand as she said, “You have beaten yourself up long enough. What is done is done. We are all here and safe. Thanks to Harry it is over.”

“Well, if you hadn’t taken the chance of lying to Voldemort, I might not have been able to.” Harry said nervously, “He could have killed me at that point if you hadn’t, Narcissa. If you weren’t a death eater Lucius, who knows what would have ended up differently. He might have even won. We will never know all the answers, but we need to make peace with the past.”

Draco squeezed Harry’s hand under the table in a show of support, before he said, “Why don’t we go ahead and eat? We can talk more after dinner.” With that Lucius nodded and called for dinner to be served.

Over the meal, Harry discussed the redecorating of Grimmauld Place and the Manor with Narcissa. He discussed his decision to pursue a career in quidditch, as opposed to the ministry with Lucius. He found himself enjoying the evening.

After dinner as they retired to the family parlor for after dinner drinks, his nerves returned because soon they would tell them they were engaged. Draco sensed his reluctance, but misunderstood his reasoning. He pulled Harry to the side before going into the parlor after his parents. “Are you having second thoughts? Do you not want to marry me?” Draco asked with a worried expression on his face.

“Of course not! I love you and would marry you tomorrow, I am just worried that your parents will be upset. We can’t exactly give them grandchildren, at least not biological ones.” Harry replied.

“Harry, we are wizards. We can have children. It is a little different than a male/female relationship, but we can.” Draco said. “We can blood adopt children and their genetics will be a mix of ours. The only difference is we can’t give birth to them, and they have to be magical for the blood adoption to work.”

Harry stood there for a bit in shock before saying, “I can have a real family? That’s all I ever wanted, but I never thought I could when I realized I was gay.”

Draco gave him a hug and whispered in his ear, “We will have a real family, with as many children as you want. Plus we have Teddy to help raise!” As he leaned back he said, “Are you ready to go tell my parents now? Mother is going to be so excited to plan the wedding!” With a nod from Harry, Draco led the way into the parlor and sat down opposite his parents, tugging Harry down with him.

“We actually have something we need to tell you mother, father. Harry and I are engaged!” Draco said with a huge smile upon his face. “That is why I wanted you to get to know him better tonight. I love him dearly, and want you to as well.” He turned and gave Harry a quick peck on the lips.

“Congratulations! Welcome to the family Harry.” Lucius said with a smile, the haunted look to him gone. “I will have two sons! We tried to give Draco siblings, but it never quite worked out.”

“Oh, we have to plan! I am so excited! Come here and give me a hug you two!” Narcissa said as she got up. “This is the best news!” She gave them each a hug before she said, “We can start planning this weekend if you aren’t busy, Harry.”

“Well actually, we still need to tell Molly and Arthur and Andromeda. How about next weekend?” he replied. “Then Molly and Andromeda can help. Molly promised to make my wedding cake when I got married, even after I realized I was gay and broke things off with Ginny.”

“That sound like a wonderful idea! Let me see, perhaps you could invite them here for tea next Saturday?” Narcissa said with a smile. “I would love to include them. They are your family, aren't they?”

“Well, yeah… pretty much. The Weasley's have treated me like a part of the family since first year, and Andromeda and little Teddy mean the world to me. I honestly don't know what I would do without them.” Harry said with a grin. Draco blushed as he added, “They have all grown to love Draco too.”

“Well they've grown on me, too.” Draco said with a laugh. “Aunt Andromeda is great, Teddy is adorable, Molly says we are both too thin, and the rest are pretty fun to be around.”

“Hmm, I have been thinking about trying to invest in the twins business.” Lucius said thoughtfully. “Do you think they would be interested in expanding? If they accept you, Draco, perhaps they would accept my interest.”

“It can't hurt to ask, but I am sure they would hear you out.” Harry replied. “I will warn you though, they have a tendency to prank their investors. Well, investor. I am the only one, so it might just be because it's me!” Harry laughed ruefully. 

“Well, I will keep my guard up and not eat or drink in their presence, just in case!” Lucius laughed. “They are quite brilliant at what they do. Those shield hats they made were quite innovative, and their pranks are better than anything Zonko's have made in years.”

“Fred and George are quite smart, even if their grades didn't reflect it in school. They deliberately did poorly in every class they could, except potions. George took half of the classes while Fred did the other half, but they both did all of the work.” Harry explained with a laugh. “If they had shown how smart they were, Molly would have pushed them to work at the ministry. By underperforming, they insured they would be able to follow their dream.”

“Sounds like they would have made good Slytherin's,” Draco said in surprise. “Who would have thought?”

“They actually had to argue with the Hat. It wanted to put Fred there, but he argued with it that a true Slytherin would hide the fact. As you know, that prejudice was extremely strong against the house of snakes still.” Harry said. “I was almost a snake myself, but circumstances leading up to my sorting made me refuse to be sorted there. Honestly, I don't think I would have been safe there.” Harry concluded with a shrug.

“True, but you are a credit to your house. Before you, Gryffindor’s sword hadn't presented itself to anyone in decades.” Lucius replied. “I hate to think what would have happened had Voldemort gotten his hands on it.” 

“Well enough of this depressing talk,” Narcissa stated firmly. “All of that nonsense is over with, we are all here, and celebrating Harry and Draco's engagement.”

“My dear, you are right.” Lucius said as he kissed her on the cheek. Then, raising a glass toward the couple, “I propose a toast to the happy couple! May your days be happy and full of love!”

Soon after Harry bid his soon to be in-laws good night before Draco escorted him back to the flu. Once there, Harry asked, “Do you want to come have a drink? I'm too happy to sleep right now.”

“Of course, I'll be right behind you.” Draco said with a kiss. “We cab have our own celebration, just the two of us.” With that they left for Grimmauld place, one after the other.


End file.
